Of course this has nothing to do with...

Only the begining

Not bad but it's only scratching the surface. Touch interfaces will see huge progress in the next year alone. I really doubt MS will do much groundbreaking here, apple are already running with the ball and google are set to throw out cash prizes for innovative software so I recon MS may have a few good ideas but aren't going to get recognised as 'the inventor of the touchscreen'.

Another area which I expect will see some development this year is gesture recognition, with just about every media device having a camera it's an area which is wide open and needs no extra hardware.

BTW, I have a touchscreen on a laptop and from what I've tried so far it looks like KDE4 will get a lot of attention in this area.

This is not new, nor is it an iPhone ripoff

The Interface Is God.

"gestures have been around for ages. the iphone and apple DID NOT INVENT multitouch controls FFS."

Nobody is claiming they did. However, Apple *are* the first to bring this particular combination of technologies to the market successfully. This is all Apple, Microsoft (and, yes, even Logitech) do: bring *existing* ivory-tower technologies and blue-sky thinking to the market and see what floats the public's boat. Apple don't tend to claim they invented this stuff; the (relatively ignorant) mass media do that. If the public are willing to believe the misinformation, that's their problem. Not Apple's.

Apple's focus is on design and ergonomics and their current corporate structure strengthens this by ensuring there is always a single, coherent design philosophy across the company.

Microsoft's core competencies are developer tools and developer technologies. Visual Studio is second to none as a result, but it has led to a lack of consistency as each department within MS follows its own path. (Neither Gates nor Ballmer have any kind of track record when it comes to product design.)

Until some years ago, good design usually meant charging a hefty premium. (Just ask Bang & Olufsen!) Advances in manufacturing have lowered the costs of both industrial and interface design, thus making them commodities like the technologies they are used to synthesize.

Microsoft do have usability labs, but they lack a single, consistent design vision. They really do need to address this, or they will end up fighting a losing battle with the GNU/FOSS movements. Linux, like OS X, may be a throwback to the 1970s, but 99% of users care about interfaces, not the technology.

Best thing Bill said

What a joke!

10 years ago, it would be OMG that is so cool, but what's the point? who wants something so frustratingly laggy and where you have to flail your arms and hands about instead of making small wrist movements with a mouse? We will within a month or two, see yet another stage in this technology's advancement and it will be in popular consumer products made by Apple.

EGHH! Dirty Screen !

Seen the first Surface demo 6 months ago, looked interesting.

Although having used the iPhone I think someone needs to think of a smear free screen quick, I don't fancy having to clean a 20" screen every 5 mins because i have to rub my finger tips over it to use it!

If Apple do indeed launch new laptops with multi-touch pads on the keyboard/mouse/touchpad then I think I'll invest in that first, It will help my RSI to be able to use both hands equally and save me on screen cleaning wipes.

Someone at Microsoft R&D rides a snowboard?

classic...

I love it when uninformed dicks try to hide their lack of knowledge by going "OMG what a crock, <object name> || <concept name> has been around of years and years!"

Oh and on a technical note, the surface CANNOT recognise devices placed on it. it can ONLY recognise micro-dot codes placed on the device's shell. So don't expect to buy a surface (ha!) and just plonk your bluetooth capable phone on the thing.

Maybe they'll start a Surfaces-for-Sure program to identify compatible devices, only to then 2 years later change the micro-dot coding format to a pattern which only Microsoft devices have.